Vast Fields Of Light

Chapter 8

Late that night, the moonlight cast soft silver windowpane shapes onto the dark Palace corridor down which Tamina quietly walked. She pulled her cotton shawl more tightly around her shoulders, stopped in front of a wooden door and forced herself not to hesitate before she knocked softly. Adrenaline pulsed steel through the blood vessels of her rib cage as she inhaled and prepared to wait - but the door opened almost immediately to reveal Dastan's alert face.

"Tamina!" he exclaimed quietly. He opened the door properly and a smile started to raise his lips but then fell away, and his brow creased in concern. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," she said in surprise, seeing that he was still dressed and that several candles were lit around his bedchamber despite the late hour. "You're up..."

"Ah, yes... I couldn't sleep," he said quietly as he stood aside for her to enter.

"More nightmares," Tamina murmured as she walked a few paces into the room, and Dastan closed the door and turned to face her.

"No, those have lessened. But I still haven't been sleeping much."

She nodded, casting her eyes over his face and seeing a tiredness that she had not noticed earlier.

"Me neither," she said quietly. Dastan's gaze bore into her and she tore her eyes away to look around the room. "So this is your chamber."

He copied her and glanced around, then turned back to her quietly, and she finally met his eyes again.

"I wasn't sure when I would see you again," he said softly. "But I certainly did not expect it to be in the middle of the night."

Tamina looked up at him for a moment and the silence stretched.

"You said you wanted to make amends..." she eventually said quietly.

He furrowed his brow in curiosity and nodded once. "Yes...?"

"I want your help with something."

He stepped towards her with eyes eager and focused. "Anything."

She pursed her lips thoughtfully, then turned and walked a few paces away, stopping to look out of the window by his bed, then back at him.

"I have been praying for guidance, and I've made a decision." She took a slow breath in and out, unconsciously lifting her head and setting her shoulders. "We need to take the dagger to the hidden temple in the mountain, and - return it to the gods forever."

Dastan's eyes widened. "What? No."

Tamina blinked in unsurprised frustration. "Dastan-"

"I know what you're saying," he said with immediate agitation as he took a step towards her. "You want to offer yourself as a sacrifice to the gods. If you think I'm letting that happen, Tamina-"

She huffed as her eyelids lowered in annoyance. "First of all, Prince, if that was what I intended to do, you would have no right to stop me." She paused and Dastan exhaled sharply through his nose, his jaw clenching. "Second of all - that is not what I am saying. All that needs to be done is to take the dagger back to the rock from which it came. I will put it inside, and it will be absorbed, and gone forever."